


Lost Souls

by Katra21



Series: One Year [3]
Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (TV 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Betelgeuse is a Prick, Cartoon Physics, Curses, Gen, Loss, Lost Souls Room, Lydia is Emo, Manipulation, Movie to Show Timeline, Neitherworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katra21/pseuds/Katra21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara and Adam Maitland were exorcised, trapped in the lost souls room. It's okay though, because Betelgeuse is on the case. (Reluctantly... pretty much no choice in the matter since Lydia owns his soul and all.) But that's easier said than done. Rules will have to be broken. Hard choices will have to be made.</p><p>Clock counts down to the day that Lydia and Betelgeuse will celebrate as friends their first year together.</p><p>Also posted on fanfiction.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Me and My Big Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> This part of One Year is still in progress, which means I'm actually going to leave notes on it. Intertwined and Monster Within were so ancient that I didn't know what to talk about. If you care to know what I was thinking at the time that I wrote those parts go to fanfiction.

**[A Neitherworld** _**Library** _ **?]**

"Dammit," Betelgeuse threw yet another book over shoulder. "Me and my big mouth," he grumbled, "I'll get Adam and Babs out of the lost souls room.  _I promise_ ; bleck." Betelgeuse stuck out his tongue at the last of it. When did he become so wishy-washy? Lydia didn't somehow use that curse to change his personality, did she? He would have heard her. Whenever she used her ownership of his soul in order to alter his curse he heard it reverberating in his head.

A couple days ago if anyone had said he'd be going to a library, he'd have laughed, and probably punched the guy. Now, here he was, scouring books, and it had been his own bloody idea too. With a groan of frustration Betelgeuse juiced up a chair and sat back from the offending shelf of books which was now essentially empty. It wasn't that the books themselves were all that annoying, even if Betelgeuse hadn't sworn off "reading" a decade ago (long story; involved a flamethrower) and was now breaking his streak, he might as well just chuck his entire reputation out the window if anyone he knew found him there.

So now Betelgeuse was doing bloody research…. and worrying about Lydia, a lot.

_**[Flashback to Winter River Connecticut]** _

__**314 Days. (October 31, Monday)**  
…or perhaps…  
313 Days. (November 1, Tuesday) 

_Betelgeuse checked his watch for the umpteenth time. Actually he checked a long armful of watches, but since he wasn't exactly sure what time zone he was in he wasn't sure if it was past midnight or not. Time was usually a moot point to the dead, Betelgeuse used it to track bar closings, but parents sometimes imposed things like curfews and groundings. It did absolutely squat if the kid was determined to do whatever the hell they wanted, but at that moment Lydia Deetz was not one of those kinds of kids._

_Lydia swayed back and forth in front of him._

_It felt like he was escorting a drunk home. Escorting drunks wasn't outside of Betelgeuse's realm of experience. Over six hundred years of practicing torture methods and the fastest way to get information was still a good dose of hard liquor. More convenient too, the informant would probably forget they'd informed, wouldn't be randomly missing, and it was just much more fun. Unfortunately Lydia wasn't drunk. She would've made a fun drunk, Betelgeuse could tell. Lydia was something very not drunk._

_He cast a soft net of invisibility over them both as a cop car drove by. They'd just think she was high or something and they'd probably arrest him for being a creep. He was a creep, maybe not right at that moment, but it was still a notable personality trait. At any rate he was not in the mood to deal with some dumb breather coppers._

_It had taken several hours for Lydia to move from the track field outside Mr. Brandon's School for Boys where the Halloween party had gone downhill. Betelgeuse had a blast, Lydia not so much, and the end result was just some mild memory tampering. There would be echoes of course, likely emotionally driven. A couple nightmares, and an easily dismissed quirk of the subconscious. Miss Shannon would avoid making dumb Halloween plans, Bertha and Prudence might avoid gummy worms, and Clare would never again own purple drapes. All for the greater good if one really thought about it._

_Lydia probably wouldn't think so. And although in any normal situation Betelgeuse wouldn't be inclined to give a damn… Her very aura had retreated._

_The warm tingling sensations that danced across Betelgeuse's dead synapses were far too controlled for a little breather with no training. It was a recipe for disaster, shutting off her sixth sense like that._

_Right now Lydia was pretty much dead to the world, and that was no state for any girl to be wandering home alone. The real question was how Betelgeuse had gotten saddled with the job. Normally he didn't escort a dame home unless he expected things to get frisky, and although in her current state Lydia wouldn't do anything to stop him it really wouldn't do him any good in the long run. Not that he could anyway, stupid no touching rule._

_Of course, Lydia had to veer off course. "Hey babes, your house is that way," Betelgeuse said with complete boredom in his voice. Lydia didn't seem to notice. "Lydia, you're going the wrong way!" he chased after her now. Usually a person's name could attract their attention, but since that wasn't working Betelgeuse had to pull out the big guns. He raced ahead a couple paces and turned invisible._

_He would've preferred to just pick her up and carry her home, but Lydia's recent additions to his curse prevented him from making any move to touch her._ She _had to touch him on her own. Since he was invisible she passed through him with a body wracking shiver._

" _What the hell?!" Lydia whirled as Betelgeuse turned visible again._

" _Your house is that way babes," he pointed, up the hill._

" _Well you could've just told me."_

" _Nope, tried it, twice. I don't know where your head's at, but it's not under that ridiculous hat."_

_Lydia put her hand to the witch hat of her Halloween costume, probably forgot she was wearing it. Her eyes glazed over and she was off to her own world again. Betelgeuse groaned in frustration and juiced up yet another cigarette. He'd probably gone through two or three packs just from whatever damnable compulsion kept him from skipping out on Lydia's little trip through la-la-land. He could be anywhere in the world right now, scaring up some big shot politician with a Gila monster. Instead he was stuck in Winter River Connecticut looking after a dame who wasn't even going to put out._

**[Back in the Neitherworld, Post Flashback]**

What brain rotting tumour growing inside of his skull kept telling him to stick around? Some bullshit sense of guilt interfering with his work, felt like he was twelve again. Back when he was just some kid conman that couldn't swindle his way past any show of compassion. Back when he had a conscience…

Fuck!

It was that 'please' wasn't it? Lydia's stupid little 'please' woke up some bullshit inner child that went soft for a free bowl of soup. Now he had his stupid conscience jabbing at him with a white hot poker of guilt. He  _liked_  his personal demons; they had great parties and chased skirts; it was some sappy disgusting shard of goodness that tortured him, stupid irony. Betelgeuse snorted at himself in derision. He was not going to become some sentimental fool, no matter what his damnable conscience was waving in his face. He had a job to do. He'd promised Lydia that he'd get the Maitlands back, he just had to figure out how. Well, he  _did_  have a plan, but Lydia would never buy into it without proof, hence why he was in a library.

"Ivanbaker's Theories on the Living," Betelgeuse read the title aloud, before flipping through the pages. Title probably should've been Ivanbaker's pseudo-philosophical waste of taxpayers' dollars.

As far as hiding places went, a library was actually a pretty good choice. There were angry mobs looking for Betelgeuse all over the Neitherworld, but even Juno would never even think of looking for him at a library. It was the perfect hiding place. Anyone who was inclined to go there were goody-goody nerds who wouldn't even know who he was.

"Betelgeuse?" a small bewildered voice asked from the end of the book aisle.

Betelgeuse went rigid, he couldn't move, he couldn't think, at least nothing beyond a numb streak of swears and ' _Not him, anyone but him, anyone but Donnie_ …'

**313 Days. (November 1, Tuesday)**

**[Lydia's Bedroom]**

Lydia's eyes fluttered open. It felt like the very air in the room was heavier than it should be. Basically, she felt like crap. What would make her feel more exhausted upon waking up than going to sleep? With a glance at her clock she swore under her breath realizing she'd slept through most of the school day. Lydia brought her hand to her head, checking for a temperature and trying to sort out thoughts that were lost to time. Instead she felt a stiff plastic based fabric. The witch hat was still on her head and the previous evening came rushing back to her.

_Betelgeuse!_ She forgot to put him away. If she knew one thing it was never ever to leave him out. "Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse."

The ghost appeared in front of her. Banishing had to be done in person. Lydia was about to say his name again, but paused, he was… paler than normal, if that was possible for the dead to be. Plus he was completely still. It looked freakishly unnatural, and considering how freakish Betelgeuse was normally that was really saying something. "Betelgeuse?" He flinched at the sound of his name, before a steely breath left his corpse of a body and he seemed to register what was happening around him . It was all in his head of course, but that was true about everything for the dead.

"Are… are you okay?" asking was more instinctual than actual concern. Betelgeuse could curl up into a ball of pain and rot in hell as far as Lydia was concerned.

"It's been, what?" Betelgeuse checked his clock, thirteen hours breather-side since he'd last seen her. Lydia looked like she had barely woken up; not a sign of a healthy soul. Betelgeuse flumped into an invisible chair, leaning back to keep his face relatively unreadable, and juiced up a cigarette to try and calm his frayed nerves. "What'd you want  _now_  babes?" he supplemented rather than talk about time.

"Put that out and don't call me babes," Lydia sneered in disgust. "You expect me to just let you run rampant?" she sounded like his mother, or Juno. "You could've blown up Australia or something," blowing up Australia… that sounded like fun. Betelgeuse couldn't help but crack a smile. "Don't even think about it, you're going back to the Netherworld."

"No such thing," Betelgeuse sat up, taking one last drag of his cigarette before flicking the offending butt into nothingness, "Netherworld is just a typo from an early edition of the handbook. It's pronounced _Neither_ -world and it's spelled like it sounds."

"Well… that's… not even remotely important, you're going back, end of discussion."

"Hey, I was already there!" Betelgeuse protested. "Getting ghosts out of the lost souls room isn't exactly a walk in the park, even for me."

"Like you would pass up an opportunity to run wild? Bullshit."

He grumbled in surrender, he wouldn't have believed himself either. "I brought proof," unceremoniously he dropped the book he'd brought over at the foot of Lydia's bed. Although the choice of book was largely incidental, it just happened to be in his hands when he'd gotten spooked by Donnie and whisked away by Lydia, bringing _a_  book was not an accident.

"What's this?" she crossed her arms, making no move to touch whatever it was that the poltergeist had dropped on her.

"My plan for getting Adam and Babs out of the lost souls room."

"How is a book a plan?" Lydia asked incredulously, but she reached for the bound stack of pages. Technically Lydia had no evidence to suggest that Betelgeuse hadn't just juiced that book into existence to say whatever he wanted it to. That was the upside of widespread literacy; people start thinking that something is true just because it's written down.

"Okay, the book was my plan for getting you to go along with the plan," Betelgeuse admitted casually as she started skimming the pages.

Then her brown eyes locked onto him, "You make it sound like you're going to get something out of it."

Betelgeuse scoffed, which only made Lydia's glare harden. Either he was losing his touch or Lydia was getting smarter, "Alright, alright, I'm a tool! I know I'm a tool. You know I'm a tool. Doesn't mean I can't offer a deal that goes both way. I figure if I get your ghostie pals back your life goes pretty much back to normal. We call it square. I stay out of your hair for the rest of eternity."

"Which I'll bet you intend on spending outside of the Neitherworld."

"Well yeah but… not blowing up Australia." He was in too deep to go back to the Neitherworld right now. Any ghost, monster, or sick sadist could essentially do what they wanted to him without any repercussions. He  _had_  to get on Lydia's good side or his afterlife was a total wash, which for him personally was a hell of a lot worse than it sounded.

"You're an idiot," Lydia said, continuing to glance through the book, "and I don't see how some ghost pondering the meaning of life has anything to do with how you're going to get the Maitlands out of the lost souls room."

Betelgeuse snapped his fingers as he made a flip board appear in midair. With a thick black marker he drew a big circle, and then he filled it with little squiggles that looked suspiciously similar to sperm. "This is the lost souls room," based on the smirk on his face he'd noticed the similarity too. Then he drew a stick figure outside the circle. "Getting in isn't a problem," big arrow, "problem is, I can't get out," big question mark in the middle of the lost souls room. "I lose track of the door and there won't anyone coming to fish me out," then he drew a second stick figure, "I need a compass, someone to stand by the door and keep me oriented while I get them, and you've got a stake in this little operation."

"What?!" Lydia looked gobsmacked, then livid, " **What?!** "

"Okay… wrong way to introduce that topic…"

"I'm not that stupid! Just because the first time we met I asked you to take me there to find them doesn't mean I'd have no problem with you  _killing me_!" Lydia roared. "I have no intention of dying, not even for Barbara and Adam," Lydia was shaking, she would die for them, but she knew it wouldn't help, and she knew that they would never forgive her for doing so. "It's the biggest betrayal of everything Adam and Barbara stood for. They stuck around because they wanted me to live!  _Really_ live; instead of wallowing in disappointment and resentment and…" Lydia's anger trailed off and Betelgeuse could understand why.

Wallowing in disappointment and resentment was exactly what she'd been doing since Clare Brewster moved to Winter River, since the Maitlands had been taken away by technological exorcism. With a terrified gasp Lydia buried her face into her hands, pulling up the blankets around her like a cocoon. The Maitlands were the only two people whose standards she wanted to fit. They were the best influence she had ever had, friendly, accepting, caring. That was the kind of person she wanted to be. And when she was given Betelgeuse's soul, a wellspring of supernatural power, she had never even tried to help them. She'd been so wrapped up in herself, in her pain, that she'd forgotten why it had hurt so badly to lose them.

"Dammit," Betelgeuse groaned watching Lydia's break down. His first instinct was to teleport away and let her deal with whatever it was on her own. Except that every sob seemed to stab him in the chest, throwing him off balance and making him forget every inclination except for fixing it. And why the hell was he so emotionally tied to her? Whatever the reason, Betelgeuse couldn't bring himself to leave her. He couldn't do anything to help of course, but he stuck around picking the farthest corner from the bed to lean against and wait for the air to clear.

It took a while for Lydia to calm down, for her brown eyes to peek out from her ball of tears to stare in confused disdain at the ghost who was surprisingly still around. Betelgeuse caught that look, "Figure if I'm here then I'm not off blowing up Australia," actually he could probably have pulled that off, leaving a duplicate was easy, but watching the complete despair lift from Lydia eyes was worth it. At any rate the door was open now, he could feel Lydia's living energy relaxing into the space around her. "You don't have to die to get to the Neitherworld, but I know you wouldn't take my word for it, which is why I brought the stupid book."

"But the Handbook said…"

"Handbook says jack-shit. The publishers don't want anyone to try it, but a trip to the Neitherworld couldn't kill a fly. Besides if I went around killing people I'd just end up in the lost souls room anyway, and I've been stuck there before, it ain't fun." Betelgeuse didn't think the weighty silence was pulling his way, "You want to just leave the Maitlands there?"

Lydia flinched at the ghost's words, if she was willing to die for them, then standing around outside of the lost souls room was nothing. She pointed a finger disparagingly at Betelgeuse before speaking, " _Wait downstairs_."

Betelgeuse groaned as Lydia's little alteration to his curse forcefully teleported him away.

**[Chapter One: End]**


	2. Best Laid Plans... Which Immediately Get Screwed Up

**[The Living Room]**

Betelgeuse was bored, tilting the coffee table with his toe while listening to the sound of Lydia rummaging around upstairs. Having a moody teenager telling him what to do was not what he had in mind when he'd wanted to get on Lydia's good side. After her latest command he couldn't leave the house and he couldn't go upstairs to bug Lydia, which was especially frustrating when he'd heard her showering. The thought of soap had made him shudder, but it had quickly been overwritten by the thought of Lydia wet and naked, except that he couldn't do anything with that except for mope around on the main floor of the house anyway.

"This fucking sucks," he grumbled aloud.

**[Lydia's Bedroom]**

Lydia flipped through Ivanbaker's Theories on the Living as she got dressed and did her hair. She'd been carefully tracking Betelgeuse's location with her ability to sense ghosts. She had been expecting him to pull something while she was in the shower, but he had stayed downstairs, and out of her hair. The book didn't actually have much to say in regards to Betelgeuse's plan, but it described some weird Neitherworld wildlife, creatures that apparently needed to eat, sleep and breathe just like any normal person would. It was actually pretty interesting even though it was filtered through the dry spiel of philosophical differences between the living and the dead. What the book said about the Neitherworld itself though was much more interesting. It called it 'the place for things that do not belong' and Lydia's heart had skipped a beat.

Lydia knew she couldn't stay in this house. It was lonely with the Maitlands gone, and now that she wasn't focussed on destroying Clare the strange emptiness of it was back full force. There wasn't any point in going to school with less than a class and a half left in the day.

Plus, going to school meant facing her friends. Lydia was ashamed that she couldn't use that word truthfully anymore. Bertha and Prudence had never really been Lydia's friends. She'd just been using them to hurt Clare. She'd just been using Betelgeuse to hurt Clare. It made no sense. She had justified her actions based on what Clare had done to Bertha and Prudence. How could she do that when she never gave a damn what actually happened to them? She was nothing but a hypocrite.

Maybe, just maybe the Neitherworld was different. She knew she was strange and unusual, maybe the strangeness that had drawn her to this house, and to the Maitlands, was just the residue of the Neitherworld. Ghosts like Adam and Barbara technically belonged there; maybe that's where Lydia belonged too. Maybe she would feel less lost and more at home in a world for things that didn't belong anywhere else.

It was stupid and infantile to even think about trusting Betelgeuse with her own life on the line.

Besides that there was a huge time difference between the worlds, even if Lydia had no friends, her family would notice that she'd gone missing. Alright, even if Delia were home rather than at a retreat in Rhode Island she probably wouldn't notice, but her father would. Charles Deetz might not have been the most understanding or nurturing sort, but he cared, and he'd been trying his best to step up and hold everything together.

Lydia made up her mind by the time she began her descent on the stairs. She would send Betelgeuse away and spend the rest of the day getting her balance back. A little poetry, a bike ride to the cemetery to take some photographs… maybe it wouldn't fix anything but she'd feel more like herself afterwards.

At the bottom of the stairs however, a note was pinned to the door with her name on it.

_Dear Lydia,_  
The retreat called, your mother had a little panic attack. I'm going to make sure everything's okay. There's money for take-out in the kitchen. Three guests max rule is still in place.  
Hope your Halloween party went well.  
Love, Dad.

He had just up and left her,  _again_. Lydia balled up the piece of paper angrily and threw it against the wall. Delia came first, Delia always came first. It wasn't like splashing cold water in her face. Lydia didn't have the energy to feel like that, and she had become too used to disappointment. It was more like she had been carrying around a heavy blanket. It had kept her warm, but once it was gone she somehow felt lighter without it.

Apparently she didn't have to worry about not getting noticed.

"Betelgeuse," she snapped, watching his flinch with a sort of sick satisfaction, "get your ass off the couch, we're going to the Neitherworld."

For a moment the ghost blinked in shock, she was really going along with his plan, even after taking her damn time about it. Betelgeuse smirked, apparently something he'd said struck a chord, or maybe he was actually getting some credit for dragging her barely sentient ass home. "Now we're talking," he let the coffee table fall back to its regular alignment with a thud as he stretched out his hand. "Just take my hand and let out those three little B-words."

Instead Lydia crossed her arms, "You don't actually expect me to touch you, do you? You're a disgusting and decrepit piece of garbage."

Betelgeuse might've pretended to be insulted, except that it was a fairly accurate description. Coming from Lydia Deetz it was practically a compliment. "But babes," Betelgeuse started.

"Don't call me that," Lydia snipped.

"Lydia," Betelgeuse started again, "contact while banishing is the only way to get you into the Neitherworld without getting into trouble."

"What about 'draw a door and knock three times'?" Lydia put her hands on her hips.

"That will go straight to Juno's office, I won't do it," Betelgeuse crossed his arms, pouting like a child.

"Well I'm not going to touch you, so figure something out."

"I can't cooperate if you don't," the ghost complained, flinging his arms wide.

"Don't act like you're trying... What about the thing you did with the fireplace?"

Betelgeuse ruffled, he was trying actually, sorta. Portals, like the one he'd made for the priest were heavily monitored. Bringing a breather through one of those would get the police on them almost as fast as going through Juno's office. Strictly speaking it might actually be safer for Lydia, but he also liked the idea of making Lydia touch him. "We can't go through a portal, the cops aren't happy with me as it is?"

"What does this have to do with cops?"

"Well, 'cause taking you to the Neitherworld is illegal."

Lydia crossed her arms again, her face doing that annoying thing that made her look kind of like Juno. "So you want to make me a criminal now?"

"No, it's not illegal for  _you_ , you've got… diplomatic immunity… stuff," technically Betelgeuse had the same diplomatic immunity, since Lydia owned his soul it put him under her jurisdiction. However, thanks to the Hawthorne Act any ghost could do whatever they wanted to him. "But just because they can't actually do anything to you doesn't mean that the cops aren't going to show up, and stepping you through a portal… they're gonna know."

"Tough," Lydia retorted, "it's still better than touching you."

"Fuck," Betelgeuse snapped in frustration, falling back down onto the couch.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lydia snapped.

"Thinking up a new plan, since I'm assuming that we're going to have to take the long way around once we're in the Neitherworld too."

Lydia let out a long sigh, "Fine, think about it on the way upstairs."

"Why?" Betelgeuse asked, as he stuck his arm through the ceiling proving that whatever condition Lydia had put on his curse had somehow worn off.

"If I'm going to go gallivanting around in another world for an unforeseeable amount of time I'm not leaving my bugs to starve to death."

"It's not unforeseeable; we'll be there two, maybe three days, and that's if we really screw around."

"What?" Lydia paused again, "How?"

"I was gonna stop time."

Lydia blinked before letting out a cry of protest, "Bullshit!"

"C'mon, who do you think made the time in the Neitherworld move so fast in the first place? No one else has the guts to pull off that kind of mayhem! Plus there aren't any other ghosts smart enough to vacation this side of the dimensional crossing while the Neitherworld authorities move in slow motion."

"Stopping time… that's… that's not possible, it doesn't even make sense."

Betelgeuse raised one arm like he was swearing an oath, "I wouldn't lie when there are bugs involved. If you don't eat them while they're still wriggling they get all dry and tasteless…"

"Enough," Lydia snipped, breathing heavily, "if any of them die then I'm holding you personally responsible."

"Here," Betelgeuse rolled up his sleeve, pulling one of his watches from his wrist, "this watch moves in time with  _this_ world." Betelgeuse lifted it towards Lydia, "When we get to the Neitherworld you can watch it, keep track of how much time has passed."

Lydia slowly stepped towards the ghost and took the watch. She watched it tick away, seemingly in working order, but examined it quickly to make sure it wasn't a trick.

"Okay…" Lydia's insides were squirming again at the thought of trusting Betelgeuse. It wasn't like she hadn't done it before. This hesitation proved that her common sense was still working somewhere behind the scenes. She still had a choice. She could ignore the uncertainty and disgust that wormed through her stomach at the thought of going along with any plan by Betelgeuse. Or she could live with the guilt of doing nothing to help Barbara and Adam Maitland.

"Two or three days…" she mulled it over in her head. The bugs would be fine, but her father might come back before she did. Leaving a portal to a dimension full of ghosts and ghouls in her living room probably wasn't a sound idea. There was her bedroom, or the attic, but those were the first two places her father would look for her if he thought she was missing. The only option was somewhere out of the house.

**[Winter River Cemetery]**

"So, what are we doing out here?" Betelgeuse asked aloud.

"I'm the only one who comes out here, makes it a better option for portals to another dimension than my living room," Lydia took one last look down the hill towards the rest of the town. It was a pretty good view; she'd have to take her bike into the Neitherworld with her.

"Man, you'd think a close knit little town would have some respect for the dead," Betelgeuse noted nonchalantly. If Lydia were actually willing to socialize with Betelgeuse then she probably would have agreed with that statement. "What's with the tree?"

The twisted trunk of the spooky tree still had streaks from the cheap make-up effects that Clare had applied to it. It would take a couple good rainfalls to wash away the evidence of Clare's epic fail, "A stupid prank by Clare," Lydia said briefly.

"Dumb bitch," Betelgeuse grumbled, "ruining an awesome tree."

Lydia didn't hesitate for a second. She refused to acknowledge the fact that Betelgeuse shared her opinion on either Clare or the tree. "Put the portal inside the hollow, keep it out of sight." Betelgeuse snapped his fingers and the tree creaked, but from the outside nothing looked different, glancing in was a completely different story. The portal glowed, sort of, but any colors or shapes sort of mashed together in a big blur. "It won't glow at night, will it?"

"I couldn't tell you," Betelgeuse shrugged, "might depend on who's looking, but it shouldn't matter that much if we stop time fast enough."

Lydia strode over with determination, before hesitating in front of it. "You're sure this won't kill me, or pop me out into some bottomless pit or anything, right?"

"If a  _troll_  can go through one of these then you'll be fine. And I know the Neitherworld like the back of my hand, safe distance from the magical McGuffin of time stoppin' action."

"Y'know, using the term McGuffin really dampens your credibility," Lydia frowned.

"Do you want me to go first?" he asked, in a mockingly sweet tone.

Lydia glared, she was not going to be coddled by Betelgeuse, "No, just pass my bike through when I'm done." Quickly shaking off her inhibitions, Lydia climbed into the hollow of the tree. If she was dumb enough to agree to marry the guy when she had no leverage or reason to trust him, than being dumb enough to trust him now that she owned his soul practically made her a genius. She closed her eyes and jumped in.

**[The Neitherworld]**

It tingled, kind of like her entire body got an extreme case of pins and needles for about three seconds. It also kind of felt like her soul left her body and then her body caught up to it. Then there was a wave of nausea that sent Lydia reeling. She opened her eyes to stop herself from stumbling, but then her breath caught in her throat.

The Neitherworld was hauntingly beautiful. Roads twisted and curved before her eyes. Everything was remarkably bright and colourful, yet somehow vaguely gothic. The world itself was floating between a reddish-gold mass and a greyish-purple mass, though Lydia had no idea which way was up or down. It was all so strange and surreal. Perhaps the most surreal part was that Lydia couldn't shake the feeling of deja-vu, like she had been there before. It wasn't like the buzz she felt when being within the functional parameters of a haunting, but it felt absolutely amazing being there nonetheless.

For the first time since the Maitlands had been exorcised Lydia felt right. No, it was longer than that. Lydia wasn't sure she'd ever felt so right, so alive. It was as though she had lived her entire life in one big dark room, the Maitlands had been opening an window, and now she was stepping outside into the real world for the first time. She felt as though she would be content to just lay in the grass forever. The promise she had felt when she had read about this place, 'the place for things that do not belong' had not been empty. It hadn't just been a desperate grasp at escapism. She _belonged_  here. Lydia basked in the ethereal glow, even though there was no sun, or light source to be seen. She twirled around as if she were a child dancing on a hill.

Then her eyes fell onto Betelgeuse. The ghost looked at her with such a complicated expression. Confusion? Frustration? Pity? "Are… are you okay?" this time Lydia was actually concerned.

"My plan's not going to work."

"Why not?" Lydia asked at Betelgeuse started to walk past her.

"You're nothing but a lost soul."

**[Chapter Two: End]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters for this portion of One Year moved incredibly slow. Trying to keep up any sort of pace, keep the characters emotionally grounded, and filter through the more technical side of my theories on how the Neitherworld works is no easy task.
> 
> I make no promises in regards to how long this story is going to take me.


	3. Perception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter that was pre-posted on fanfiction, which means the next chapter is still in progress. Savour it, because I don't know when I'll finish chapter four.

**[The Neitherworld]**

Betelgeuse watched the awestruck girl drift aimlessly around. It made sense; the Neitherworld was quite a spectacle even at its most plebeian moments. However the results of their trip were not what he had anticipated. Lydia's ability to sense ghosts was not at home among the living, that part of her longed for the Neitherworld. Betelgeuse had been hoping that her power would be just as strong or stronger once she was actually there, but Lydia was distinctly lacking her usual presence. Her mortality tied her to the Outerworld. Her gaze stopped on him, the joy draining from her eyes, "Are… are you okay?" Lydia asked softly.

Betelgeuse inwardly cursed his bad luck, along with whatever part of him wanted to help the doe eyed girl to begin with. Lydia couldn't anchor him more than a few feet, and the lost souls room was a whole lot bigger than that, "My plan's not going to work."

"Why not?" Lydia asked, as he started walking past.

"You're nothing but a lost soul."

"I'm a lost soul?" Lydia muttered in confusion as he walked past. Lydia had read about lost souls, ghosts that had been exorcised, drained of their essence. Lydia was certain that she wasn't a ghost; but even if she was, she hadn't been exorcised.

"Well, not exactly, but the dead don't have physical eyes so anyone who doesn't have the juice to compensate will see you as a lost soul."

"What does that have to do with anything? Adam and Barbara could see me fine."

"Ah, but that was back in the Outerworld, the land of the living. In the Neitherworld stuff like that sometimes works in reverse. Any old breather could see a ghost here, because ghosts belong in this world. Your energy is all strung out by you being part of the land of the living. I thought that your ability to see ghosts would make you an exception, but, no dice. Anchoring only works as long as I can feel you, and right now a cantaloupe would make a better compass than you."

"Feel me..." Lydia played over the words in her head, it sounded like the ghost was making something up again, trying to scam her into letting him get away with whatever he wanted to. She had to hand it to him though, the face was convincing. "We're  _going_  to save Adam and Barbara!" Lydia said firmly, although her feet weren't quite connected to her frustration as they couldn't resist a small skip as Lydia moved to catch up with the ghost.

"And to do that we'll need some more time," Betelgeuse sneered as he spelled it out. "So I'm still gonna stop time," Betelgeuse turned away from her and stepped up to a lonely sundial on a stone pedestal.

Lydia blinked, she hadn't even been thinking about the time. Looking at the watch that Betelgeuse had given her. The second hand spun around the clock face feverishly, but the minute and hour hands didn't seem like they were moving  _too_  fast. Then she noticed Betelgeuse hunching over the dial his head down against the face, one eye open and his tongue sticking out. "Wait, so your magical McGuffin of time stopping action is a sundial? Way to build up something completely mundane."

"Wait for it babes," Betelgeuse began to twist the sundial, "I know the exterior ain't much to look at, but it's the inside that counts."

"But why a dial? If this thing is so important then…"

"Shh," Betelgeuse hissed.

Lydia grimaced, but she remained quiet. Betelgeuse had closed his eyes, a combination of serenity and concentration filling up the features that were normally maniacal. It was a combination lock. Lydia peered over the ghost's shoulder, but since she was unwilling to get close she couldn't tell anything about the sequence. Since Betelgeuse had his eyes closed he obviously didn't know the combination either and was just breaking into it. Then there was a loud thunk, heavy, almost metallic, which reverberated from the ground beneath them.

"It's  _so_  important that the bigwigs don't want folk noticing it," Betelgeuse said smugly and reaching down he pulled open a trapdoor that had been hidden in the grass. As soon as he lifted it Lydia could hear more. A cacophony of clanking, creaking, and even wheezing escaped from the underground chamber. Betelgeuse descended the hidden stairs, Lydia hesitated, but her curiosity was peaked, her caution didn't last long. Down the stairs was a circular platform of stone surrounded by gears, all different kinds of stone, metal, and wood. Lydia's jaw dropped open as she stared at the surrounding mechanism.

The same sensation of deja-vu swept over her in droves, and she drifted towards a wheel that was solid black. Instead of cogs it had moving images suggestive of the solar system although they were in the strangest arrangement. But the black gear reminded her of something. "Where did you put my bicycle?"

Betelgeuse started pulling things from his pockets, some of which was clearly too big to fit into the pockets; Lydia's bike, bags and lamps and a twelve foot long submarine sandwich, complete with a periscope. Then he pulled out a thick wooden beam. "Here we go," he said, and jammed the wooden plank into the stone gears slowing the entire mechanism to a stop. "Now, time in the land of the living isn't moving at all."

"Seriously, just like that?" Lydia asked, claiming her bicycle, certain that Betelgeuse's filthy unnatural pockets were no place for it.

"Just like that," Betelgeuse echoed. "The same technique used to give the civil servants a holiday."

Lydia glanced at the wristwatch that Betelgeuse had given her, the hands were still, though strangely enough the watch continued to make small ticking noises. Then she looked back at the ghost who was casually lounging mid-air and picking at his teeth. "What are you doing?"

"Thinkin'," Betelgeuse said dismissively. If he took Lydia with him  _into_  the lost soul's room he could theoretically teleport back by a summoning. Lydia was tied to the Outerworld; he could track back with that connection.

"Well, while you do that, I'm going back," Lydia said, picking up her bike, and heading towards the secret stairs.

"Not a good idea," Betelgeuse said loudly, "if you tried to go back now you'd be stuck in teleportation limbo until time gets started again." Teleporting out of the lost souls room via Lydia would pose the same problem.

"Oh, I wasn't- back outside, not through the portal. Figure I could see a little more Neitherworld while I have the chance."

Betelgeuse smiled, he knew Lydia would love the Neitherworld, "Geez, you make it sound like you'll never come here again."

"I won't," Lydia said, this time both firmly and sadly, "at least not until I'm dead."

"Ah geez, don't go all emo on me again," Betelgeuse groaned. "Why limit yourself, you've got the ghost with the most on your side, opening portals like that is easy."

"I thought you weren't going to stick around once the Maitlands were back," Lydia sneered at him, just a little. Betelgeuse had forgotten about that. "You might be all for breaking whatever laws you want and getting into trouble, but I know they're not going to let me hop back and forth willy-nilly."

"I…" Betelgeuse didn't have any clear cut answers, and his mouth stuck tight once he closed it.

"It's alright, just let me enjoy it while it lasts," Lydia said finally as she took her bike, and herself, back up the steps.

Dammit, he had made her sad again. For a minute Betelgeuse flailed about in frustration. No matter what he did it was one step forward, three steps back. What was it about her anyway? When she was upset it always made him think of Donnie, back when they were kids. Not even Donnie himself made him think that way. Running into his little brother back in the library all he wanted to do was get away. Lydia was the opposite, he wanted to get closer to her, he wanted to comfort her, he wanted to fix everything. So why were those memories connected in his mind?

What if… what if he didn't go to the lost souls room right away? He could bring Lydia back and forth from the Neitherworld while he figured out another way to get the Maitlands back. It wasn't a lasting solution but it would give Lydia some more time to see the sights, to soak in the abnormality and balance herself out.

That meant actually fixing the clock. So long as Lydia didn't want to touch him they would have to use portals, back and forth from the Outerworld, the time clock couldn't always be their first stop. Neitherworld authorities would pick up on that sort of pattern pretty quickly. If Lydia wanted to go back and forth regularly then time in both the Outerworld and Neitherworld should move in synch. It was about time that he fixed his practical joke anyway, the Neitherworld would be overrun by new dead very quickly if he didn't. According to the Neitherworld the problem had only been going for twenty five years. Meanwhile a hundred and fifty years had passed by in the Outerworld. There were all kinds of economics to keep in mind with the various baby boom generations and all that.

Betelgeuse phased through the gears, sticking his head through a big metal one. He had to examine the gears one at a time to find his marks, because he sure as hell couldn't be bothered to remember. It was easier while it was stopped to find the gears he'd marked, but it still took longer than he would have liked.

When all was said and done, after he'd taken the plank out from the gears, he emerged from the time clock. Lydia was nowhere in sight. What was in sight was a dozen police vehicles and twice that many armed officers pointing their firearms at him.

"Ah fuck," Betelgeuse cussed lightly.

"Betelgeuse," one of the police called over a megaphone. Not that Betelgeuse was paying enough attention to pinpoint who, he was too busy trying to spot Lydia. "Surrender yourself and all Outerworld contraband."

That caught his attention, Outerworld contraband meant Lydia. The cops didn't have her. But then, where was she? With a frustrated breath Betelgeuse extended his energy out, watching several of the coppers flinch as they felt just how much Betelgeuse had hidden his powers. Then, a faint ping, it was faint, but even stretched thin, Lydia's energy was distinct to his mind. She was well out of the way and moving further from the police. Good, he didn't want her sanctimonious ass stopping him from teaching the police to stay out of his way.

"F-fire at will!"

**[Down (Or Up?) the Road]**

Lydia shivered. For a moment it had felt like Betelgeuse was right next to her, but then the feeling slipped away. Was that supposed to be some sort of signal, or was she just imagining things?

For a moment she debated whether to turn back, just in case, but that would also mean she was at the beck and call of the psychotic dead man. No, Lydia would wait for the ghost to come for her. Popping up out of nowhere was one of his specialities after all.

Then a large vehicle came rumbling up the road looking almost exactly like a Henry Moore sculpture crossed with a tank. Thick treads rumbled down the street and Lydia pulled to the side to let it pass, propping her bicycle against a purple tree with flame coloured leaves. If only she had her camera. She had no idea if pictures could be taken of the Neitherworld or how they would develop if they were, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Everything in this place was just- beautifully gothic, yet familiar. Lydia would have to find a word for it, but couldn't figure it out while she stood in the thick of it.

She didn't expect the lumbering vehicle to come to a stop and a man to step out. The man, or ghost Lydia assumed, appearred elderly, and looked straight at Lydia with pale grey eyes. Lydia could see the rather awkward state of his spine which probably caused his death, the baseball cap on his head probably covered a bloody mess of his onetime plummet towards the earth.

"Another unreported Sandworm attack," he let out a sigh. "Come along now, I'm sure your caseworker will get you sorted out as soon as possible."

Lydia lurched back, away from the unfamiliar ghost's reach. "I'm not a lost soul," she said sternly. A few minutes ago she had wondered what kind of stupid game the ghost was playing trying to change plans so suddenly. She thought that the ghost with the most had just been trying to exploit a new angle after seeing how she reacted to the Neitherworld. But Betelgeuse had told the truth, which meant that she had misread his intentions.

"You can see me, that's good, you'll probably be out of the lost souls room in a few months."

"Didn't you hear me? I'm not a lost soul," Lydia snipped again, and ducked behind the oddly coloured tree. Betelgeuse failed to mention that her lost soul-ness would apply to another ghost's hearing as well, the old man had no idea what she was saying.

"It's alright, everything will be fine," the old man cooed almost as though he were approaching a bunny rabbit or something.

"BETELGEUSE!" Lydia yelled, despite knowing that the ghost with the most would probably be too far away to hear her. Then the elderly man grabbed her, and something about the texture of his gloves made her skin prickle with discomfort. Apparently touch didn't help the ghost identify her as living because he simply dragged her towards his Henry Moore tank, opened it up, and threw her in.

**[Chapter Three: End]**


	4. Rescue is Taking its Sweet Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Squee for new chapters! Yes, chapters, though the next one will be staying with me for a couple weeks to make sure it is shiny. Think of it as a Christmas Present (funny how it's this story instead of the one actually taking place a Christmas).

**[The Neitherworld]**

**Unknown Date**

It was only cops. Admittedly, Betelgeuse's relationship with cops was getting harder to pin down lately. Back in his early days he could just flick Juno's card at them and pretty much do anything he wanted. After he'd left her employ he had to be more careful. Since Lydia came into the ownership of his soul, his freedom to mess with cops had been cut very short. Since the Hawthorne act made it legal for any ghost to pretty much do whatever they wanted to him - well he considered himself lucky that it was just cops after him today.

It's not like he did any lasting damage. The only lasting damage Betelgeuse could do to another ghost was exorcise them to the lost souls room, which he didn't. Of course, the Neitherworld police force wasn't all ghosts. Necromancers would subcontract skeletons for the police force, so Betelgeuse had to be careful not to shatter any bones. There were of course wild things -swamp monsters, yeti, and the like who were alive, and therefore requiring Betelgeuse to be even more careful, even though wild things are pretty much the most durable variety of living creatures ever. One witchling, elemental variety, minor class, so Betelgeuse kept his distance from that cop. At least there were no insectoids among this batch of police, so Betelgeuse didn't have to watch himself in that regard. All in all, no one was left with anything worse than a minor scrape or light bruise. Maybe a large number of them had shit their pants, and would need counselling for shell shock, but that wasn't really Betelgeuse's fault. It was their superior officers who let a pack of yellow-bellied kindergarten cops go after the ghost with the most. They weren't trained for dealing with Betelgeuse on a day like today.

This wasn't a quick con job for chump change.

It wasn't a joyride for a cheap laugh.

Lydia wasn't some random breather.

Today the cops found out just how serious he could get.

When Betelgeuse was done with them the Neitherworld police had fled, leaving him with a shiny new police vehicle to drive in the direction he'd felt Lydia's presence. There would be consequences for using that much juice on everyday coppers, but at that moment Betelgeuse didn't care. He had a job with stakes more significant than his own amusement. Maybe he'd worry about it once he'd gotten the Maitlands back to Lydia. Or maybe just after he'd gotten himself back to Lydia. Right now the only thing about himself that could come into focus was how much he needed another cigarette.

It didn't help. Seven cigarettes later and he still wasn't thinking straight.

Where the fuck was Lydia? Betelgeuse had extended his juice again, but he still couldn't find the ping of Lydia's energy. He was starting to feel twitchy, because to have her energy just vanish on him like that didn't make any sense.

Then he saw her bike.

Betelgeuse pulled over, confirming it was Lydia's bike before he started really freaking out. Where was she? Nowhere in sight. Nowhere in sensing range. Why would she leave her bike? There was nowhere to go! There was still gravity (of a sort), there was no way she could have fallen off the road.

"Lydia!" Betelgeuse yelled, though silence was the only response. Then a soft, desperately confused, "Fuck."

Grabbing Lydia's bike, he stuffed the contraption back into his pocket. He headed back for the car, hoping he'd find Lydia if he just drove a little further. Then he noticed the tracks. Wide, black, jigsaw tracks, that could only mean one thing - soul collectors.

Lydia was on her way to the lost souls room.

**[Inside]**

"Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse," Lydia whimpered softly, but once again her attempt to summon him seemed to have failed. "Why isn't it working?" It should have worked. Lydia had read over the details of Betelgeuse's curse. He should have been summoned when she said his name three times, Neitherworld or otherwise. "Stupid bastard ghost!" she yelled, "Where are you when I need you?!"

Then she crouched, dejected, wrapping her arms around her knees. Nothing she had read in the Handbook, Ivanbaker's Theories, or even the details of Betelgeuse's curse mentioned anything like this. That… worker ghost had thrown her into the Henry Moore sculpture, which seemed to be some kind of holding pen. Lydia could only guess though because the whole place was pitch black. There had to be light coming from somewhere though, because she could still see herself brightly lit as though she were still outside, yet she couldn't see any walls or anything else. The only way she could tell that there were walls at all is because whenever she touched one she got the same prickle of discomfort as the worker's gloves.

Lydia didn't know what to do. She didn't know where she was or what was going on. Helplessness washed over her as she curled into the fetal position, trying as hard as she could not to touch any more unpleasantly tingling walls. Lydia had never felt so helpless before. Not since she was really little. Stubbornness and an independent nature pushed her to think through and manage her own problems. Here she had nothing.

The only hope she really had was that Betelgeuse would somehow manage to bail her out. How screwed up was that? With no evidence that anyone other than Betelgeuse would notice that she wasn't actually a lost soul, she didn't have any other options.

Then again, she had definitely felt Betelgeuse's presence just before that elderly ghost had thrown her into this messed up sculpture-thing. Maybe the ghost with the most already knew where she was, and had decided to use the situation to his own advantage.

Lydia shuddered slightly, and lifted her arm. The watch had started moving again. Though Lydia wasn't sure if it had started before or after she'd been thrown into the strange void-space. The watch seemed to be going at the speed she would have expected. Was she back in the land of the living somehow, or still in the Neitherworld? Was it possible that she had been stuck in teleportation limbo like Betelgeuse had said and he'd forgotten her, or faded away, his afterlife spent? Was the dimension she knew as home even called the land of the living? Now that Lydia knew that being alive had nothing to do with it she was left with even more questions.

Suddenly there was light, momentarily blinding her. "Betelgeuse?" Lydia questioned, until something grabbed her arm and the same uncomfortable prickle travelled across her skin. She was only out for a moment, between her blinks she made out an office hallway, somehow sterile in appearance, even though it wasn't visually straight, and the walls were an off-putting puce.

Then, darkness again. Back in the tank-sculpture? Lydia pawed about for the walls, even though she was loathe to touch them again, but she couldn't find any. Then, she pawed about for the floor, but she couldn't find that either. No walls, no floor, the only thing that seemed to resist her movements was her own body. Yet, it didn't seem like she was weightless either. Lydia swallowed, hearing her saliva slick past muscles was louder, but somehow hollow.

"Betelgeuse!" Lydia cried out once more, but the same hollow sound followed her voice. There was no echo here, no echo at all. Every sound she made seemed to be amplified and yet also vacuumed away. Another shudder. It was all so unnatural. Lydia clung to her own skin, curling into a fetal ball. The sensation of her hands on her arms was stabilizing somehow. There was nothing but her, the sounds of her own body, and the tick tick tick of Betelgeuse's watch.

**[The Open Road]**

"Why am I doing this?" Betelgeuse asked himself in between puffs of yet another cigarette. He'd lost count by this point, but he didn't particularly care. It didn't take much juice to zap another into existence, or just continuously lengthen the one he was working on, and he certainly wasn't going to die of lung cancer.

Simple fact was he was a free man right now. Lydia wouldn't be able to summon him from the lost souls room. Anything intended to interact with lost souls was lined with bludchary, preventing teleporting, and phasing. The best Lydia could do right now was banish him straight to the lost souls room, but it wasn't likely she would think of that, and it would mean having to wait a month or two while Betelgeuse regained his juice before they could do anything. Lydia would be dead by then, now that time was moving properly. Actually were Lydia's vitals based off her connection to the Outerworld, or based on the time she'd spent in the Neitherworld? Whatever, it still didn't answer the initial question.

"Why, the fuck, am I doing this?" Betelgeuse groaned, letting out a curse just to see if it would help him think.

"Well I'm driving there because if I teleport to the offices it will show up in Juno's files, and I'll get into shit for it sometime down the road."

That didn't answer his question.

"I need  _some_  sort of excuse to tell Lydia when I get her," Betelgeuse half berated himself. It might have been the reason why he needed an answer, but it still didn't answer his question. It wasn't even the reason he'd asked the question in the first place.

The real reason he'd asked the question in the first place was because he hated not knowing his own motives. Betelgeuse always had a reason, even if it was a stupid reason. His afterlife was  _full_ of stupid reasons. Sometimes the reason was only because whatever he was doing was second nature to him - things like drinking, smoking, hitting on chicks, and freaking people out.  _Rescuing_  someone at all wasn't included in that list, ever. If he didn't have a motive for helping Lydia then it only pointed towards mind control, manipulation. His curse wasn't designed to limit him in that way, not even for the person who owned his soul.

Not even soul ownership was fucked up enough to mimic mind control like that. Well, it could, of course, in the hands of a necromancer, emotions could be pulled every which way until a ghost was nothing more than a cold shell of 'Yes master, may I have another hit of bliss now?' but Lydia wasn't anywhere close to becoming a necromancer. Fuck, Lydia would make a terrifying necromancer if she was, especially with the ghost with the most under her belt.

Of topic. Very off topic.

"Why am I doing this?" he asked himself again, third times being the charm, he might actually get a logical answer.

_Logic,_  now there was something he hadn't mulled over in a long time, perhaps the concept could be used to resolve his little dilemma. Looking at it logically there was always the chance that if he didn't rescue Lydia she'd exorcise him, she still had that power. She could easily exorcize him at any moment. Except the Betelgeuse had pretty much already thought that train dry. He'd  _want_  Lydia to exorcise him if it helped solve their problems, but it wouldn't. Not like he would stay in the lost souls room forever. No one deserved that sort of hell. Especially not Lydia.

Betelgeuse slammed on the brakes and came to a stop, his brow crinkling, "Where the fuck did that come from?!"

"Why the hell not Lydia?!" he demanded, resorting to yelling his thoughts. "She's really no better than anyone else, why should she get some sort of special treatment?! I wouldn't do this for anyone else! Why does it make any difference that it's  _Lydia_  fucking  _Deetz_  who's trapped in the lost souls room?! This isn't even my fault! Why should it be  _my_  stupid problem?!"

So Betelgeuse stepped out of the cop car, kicked it and paced angrily away, throwing himself into the cool Neitherworld grass to huff. "Well fuck her," Betelgeuse grumbled to himself. "I'm not her fucking slave, she can wait forever for all I care. She should know better than to trust me to save her pale ass. I'm surprised she hasn't exorcised me already."

Betelgeuse blinked at his own comment. Lydia  _hadn't_  exorcised him. Lydia hadn't whipped out her influence to fuck him over. She wasn't stupid, she would have realized by now that she could, and she hadn't, which could only mean that she trusted him to come and save her. She trusted him with a lot of things, now that he stopped and thought about it. She trusted him to protect her from a crazed gunman who had broken into her house and shot… that one guy… whatever his name was. She trusted him around her friends, to save her halloween, and then trusted him again to clear up the mess. Walking her home - was she really so out of it that it wouldn't matter who was next to her, or had she put her trust in him then too? She'd certainly trusted him with the crazy plan to bring her to the Neitherworld in order to get the Maitlands out. Trust didn't seem like the sort of thing that came easy to her. He was scum, she knew that. He wasn't a knight in shining armor. Even if he was he would have to be the grubbiest knight since the dawn of polish. She still trusted him. Was that why he was willing to risk his neck for her?

All the thinking was starting to hurt Betelgeuse's head. He dragged himself back to the cop car.

Fuck motive. So Lydia was someone he wanted to protect. That was reason enough. He hadn't wanted to protect anyone since he and Donny were little kids. Maybe that was why the two were connected in his brain. Despite six hundred years of separation they were the only two people that he'd ever wanted to protect.

"Stupid Donny, try to jump me in a library, rat bastard," Betelgeuse grumbled. "I'll just tell Lydia that I had nothing better to do."

It still didn't really answer his question.

So he'd drawn a few parallels. It still didn't explain what made Lydia so special that he would reverse his patterns after having over six hundred years of death to give him a solid sense of identity. Donny was his little brother, his last living relative at the time, and still an innocent kid. Lydia was no innocent, and certainly not a relative, unless a failed marriage attempt counted. It wasn't like they'd actually got far enough through the ceremony to tie their afterlives together.

That had been the plan though… to share his afterlife with Lydia Deetz in order to get out from his curse. Lydia had an easy out, marriage had a 'til death do you part' clause for a reason. You could opt out of any soul ties you made when you were living and didn't necessary have a choice. Betelgeuse respected his parents for choosing each other a second time once they were already dead. Lydia was the first breather in six hundred years that he'd been willing to share his afterlife with.

That was impossible though. Betelgeuse had better self-control that to tie himself down before the deal was done. Didn't he?

Maybe he didn't.

Maybe he'd given Lydia the most important part of a wedding between living and dead without even thinking about it.

Fuck. If that were the case then he really was screwed.

Betelgeuse started the car again, and continued driving. His destination hadn't changed.

**[Chapter Four: End]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cannoli, this chapter is a psychological nightmare. Just switching from the emo of Lyds to the emo of Beej. Cheezits, just kiss and make up already! Yeah, not gonna happen. This is not really a couple-y fic. Little bit, but not really.
> 
> Hopefully I've sprinkled my Neitherworld head-canon in a little more delicately than in the first chapter.
> 
> Onto the news-y-er part of my rant. The next chapter is actually... already complete. It's been a long time since I've been able to say that. My muse for this story has finally decided to come out of hibernation for a pop and regurgitate plot through my fingers. Hopefully it will continue to do so because the next chapter is the end for this little arc.
> 
> I don't what the next one will be called yet, but hopefully my muse will continue and I'll have it worked out before I post the next chapter. Which - unlike this chap - I will be sitting on for a couple weeks.


	5. Must be Crazy

**[Lost Souls Room]**

**Date Even More Unknown**

Lydia couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop crying. Nothing made sense.

At least she had figured out that she was in the lost souls room. Assuming Betelgeuse was telling the truth, and that the tank driving workman she had met wasn’t some way of tricking her, then the lost souls room was the only place she could be. There was a distinctive lack of lost souls though. It wasn’t comforting. 

Betelgeuse probably could have been summoned during that brief window in the office hallway. She hadn’t thought of it at the time. Her paltry two attempts in this new void had went as well as her attempts in the Henry Moore tank. So she was helpless once more.

Physics were the worst in here. Down still felt like down. Her hair wasn’t free floating. Her tears rolled  _ down _ her cheeks. But then, whenever one of the drops stopped touching her it was free-floating, like there was no gravity. Then if Lydia touched it again it continued to travel in the direction she considered to be down. It was maddening.

Worse though, was the sound. She had tried talking to herself, humming, even doing silly voices and they only made the void seem more empty, more consuming, more maddening. She had stopped trying. After spending so long in that empty void without speaking though she’d become hypersensitive to every little sound, her own breath, heartbeat, even the churning of her stomach. But at least the thrumming of her body changed rhythm occasionally, as she went through phases of panic, and calm. The watch, however, remained constant. 

Tick, tick, tick. 

She hadn’t been able to ignore it. 

Tick, tick, tick. 

It was like the sound was crawling under her skin. 

Tick, tick, tick. 

She had pulled the watch off, let it float through the void, but the noise vacuum didn’t take it away. 

Tick, tick, tick.

Eventually she had to smash it. For the sake of her sanity. Only an hour had passed from the brief moment of freedom to when she made the call to destroy it. Now she had no idea how time passed.

Then she had taken to scratching. At first the sound of her nails dragging against skin had been stabilizing. Then the pain of her skin having been rubbed raw held her. Once that sensation of rawness faded she started again on a different patch of skin. It wasn’t too bad. She wasn’t drawing blood. Though, she wasn’t sure what she would do with herself once she ran out of healthy skin and had to start over.

Tick, tick, tick.

Oh god. It was back. But she had destroyed the watch, she was certain.

Tick, tick, tick. 

Lydia plugged up her ears, knowing that it wouldn’t help.

“Lydia!”

Oh god. Voices now? She was really going crazy. If she ever got home she’d be sent of to a loony bin like Delia.

“Lydia! Open your eyes!”

Lydia shook her head. She didn’t trust the voice.

“Dammit babes! I’m trying to help.”

It sounded like Betelgeuse. Only Betelgeuse called her babes. But it would only make sense that she would hallucinate the ghost because she was depending on him to save her.

“Lydia. Come on, help a dead guy out here.”

If it was real she should be able to feel it. The real Betelgeuse would touch her. He would touch her and she would feel the unnatural cold that came from his skin.

“Please Lydia. I can’t do anything.”

He wasn’t supposed to touch her though. Lydia made that a rule. Still, she should feel him nearby… She could. Once she had thought to feel for it the icy sensation was close, though it seemed smaller than normal. But that could be in her head just as easily as anything else. Still, if she had imagined that too then she had to open her eyes, there wasn’t any other senses she could trust.

Carefully she opened her eyes, and watched relief spread across his facial features. It was weird. Lydia cringed. Could she have imagined his face like that? Would he make a face like that outside of her imagination? Only one way to tell. Lydia reached forward, and grabbed him. The cold rush of touching a ghost made her shiver rather than shudder. If he wasn’t real then she was too far gone for it to make a difference.

“So… are you scarred for life yet?” Betelgeuse asked with a lecherous smirk.

“Rat bastard!” Lydia yelled loudly, and pushing away. “What took you so long?!”

“Hey, I got here as fast as I could,” Betelgeuse scoffed, “I mean… with the cops… the wading through the sea of lost souls… and the identity crisis…”

“What  _ sea _ of lost souls? There’s nothing here.”

“You probably can’t see them… I don’t know if that’s good luck or bad. They're here though.”

“Adam and Barbara?”

“Didn’t see them, and we could be going ‘round in circles for days if we tried.”

“Fine, just get me home,” Lydia said, trying to fight back crying with relief.

Betelgeuse held out his hand, “Magic B-word three times.”

“I’m not touching you,” Lydia sneered.

“Dammit, Lydia, stop being stubborn. It’s the only way out! The most you could do right now is banish me. The only difference is then I’d be invisible to you. Just trust me for another five seconds and you’re home. I can drop us right in your living room.”

Lydia whimpered slightly. Betelgeuse couldn’t blame her for that. The lost souls room was essentially solitary confinement. Ghosts were too weak to see each other, so it didn’t matter how many souls were crammed in, they were all alone. Betelgeuse was apparently the exception to that, the dead had swarmed him until he turned his energy output down to normal ghost levels and they had dissipated. Luckily though, Lydia’s hesitation didn’t last, she spread her fingers forward, and wrapped her hand around his until his knuckles started to hum, a sigh that on a breather she might've broken something. 

“Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse,” Lydia whispered with uncertainty. 

**[Lydia’s Living Room]**

It was simple to follow the trail of her living energy back to the Outerworld, back to where she belonged. In a flash Lydia’s wispy trail turned into the spitfire that she truly was, that intoxicating rush of a young girl too big for the mortal coil. Unfortunately as soon as they had returned to the land of the living she pulled away and fell back against the wall, burying herself in her knees, and trying to stop shaking.

_ Don’t bug her _ , Betelgeuse thought to himself,  _ Lydia trusts you, don’t fuck that up. _ Betelgeuse stepped back, and then slumped onto the couch in defeat. He didn’t like it, seeing her curled up and shuddering like that. There was no soul-tie. He had checked. He wasn't tied to her that strongly. But whatever messy emotions he felt for her were pretty damn close. He would continue to be compelled to do whatever she wanted, just as he had before, if she so much as looked his direction.

The clock read 3:35, fat lot of good looking did him, couldn’t even tell what day it was. It could still be the day they left, or the next, or the day after that. He had lost track of time. Times like this, with Lydia sitting in the corner and shaking like a leaf in a strong wind, barely clinging to the branch called reality, Betelgeuse wished he’d gotten more practice with the genuine human communication thing. The only way he knew to make a girl feel better was not the sort of behaviour Lydia would approve of. 

_ Why do I even care?! _ The ghost demanded of himself silently, beginning to gesture to himself as he did so. _ I shouldn’t care, she’s fucked up my afterlife, not the other way around, I don’t have to give a...  _ Lydia gasped slightly in her crying, which brought Betelgeuse out of his angry internal rant. It didn’t matter why, not while she was crying and he was being useless. 

Betelgeuse leaned over the arm of the chair to watch her reaction carefully, “It’s okay...” Lydia’s head shot up to look at him, for a moment her trembling had stopped, and her face, damn her cute little scared shitless face. “It’s okay to be freaked out. It’ll pass though. I’ve been through it too, the isolation. Things go back to normal, faster than you’d think, sometimes faster than you’re ready for. You’ll get through this.”

For a moment Lydia was silent, but her shuddering had started again, she turned her face to the ground, away from Betelgeuse, and muttered softly, “Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse.”

For once he didn’t even try interrupting her. She needed to be alone, though he had no idea why after enduring the lost souls room. It didn’t mean he wasn’t going to hang around. He shifted the banishment to land himself back on his old stomping grounds, the town model created by Adam Maitland. Picking a clear view he settled himself down to watch Lydia. After everything Lydia had gone through she needed a good breakdown. Betelgeuse knew what that was like. But unlike his own breakdown Lydia was having this one with an unseen safety net. Not that he could do much to stop her if she tried anything stupid.

Lydia took a shaky breath. She was alone again. She wasn’t even sure why she had sent Betelgeuse away, because after the ghost was gone she was left with a pang of emptiness. Burying her head back into her knees she tried to block out all but the simplest of sensations. If she could recreate it, come out of that void of nothing more gradually, maybe she could forget how close she was to clawing her own skin open. She felt the wall, and the floor, and her skin burning where she had been scratching at it. Her throat was dry and scratchy from crying so much. Even the tick, tick, tick, of the mantelpiece clock was like a soothing balm compared the the watch that Betelgeuse had given to her.

Was it expensive to have a clock attuned to time in another dimension? Lydia hummed in the place of the question. Her voice sounded better now, sounded real. She cut out the other sounds, other sensations and focussed on her own humming. She didn’t even know what tune it was but it helped her calm down.

Something tugged her shirt. Lydia whirled in panic until she saw the lithe figure of black fur. Percy. He meowed, and in response Lydia lowered her high knees, crossed her legs, and let the cat crawl into the space and curl up. She ran her fingers over his silky spine, and slowly let in the world around her. Percy’s purring. The sound of a fly circling somewhere nearby. The thump of feet on wooden steps.

_ Ding-Dong _

Lydia jumped. Momentarily flashing back to the last time she’d heard that bell, the day a lunatic who didn’t wear stripes barged into her home, traumatised her parents, and took away the Maitlands. Then she came back to reality. That man was dead. Was dad home already? She hadn’t had time to clean up, her face was probably a mess from all that crying. No, wait, her father wouldn’t have rung the bell.  Lydia wasn’t going to answer it. That door had let too much misery into her life already. She wasn’t going to risk letting in more.

“Lydia?” She recognized the voice. Bertha’s voice.

Lydia stood, then stumbled, her legs felt like mush.

“Lydia? Are you home?” That was a softer voice, Prudence was out there too.

For a moment her mouth lolled, gaping like a dumb fish, before she managed. “I’m coming! Just a second!” 

Lydia hobbled her way to the door. Percy circled her feet, purring like mad. Oh crap, when was the last time he was fed? He didn’t look any skinnier, maybe he’d gotten his teeth into some mice or birds. “Just, give me one minute, Percy,” Lydia begged, pushing the lovable little pest away, and finally reaching the door.

“Hey Lydia, you weren’t at school so we- yeesh, you look terrible.”

“I can imagine,” Lydia said. “What are you guys doing here? I kind of thought we weren’t friends after what I did.”

“What you did?” Bertha tipped her head, and looked towards Prudence, who shrugged.

Lydia sucked in a breath. Right, Betelgeuse had tampered with their memories. “Nevermind, must’ve been a nightmare I guess.”

“Are your parents home?” Prudence asked, worry painting the girl’s petite features.

“Not at the moment,” Lydia managed a crooked smile. “Did you want to come in? The place is a mess, but I’m not allowed friends over.”

“Sure,” Bertha smiled, walking right in.

Prudence took care to wipe her shoes, and gave a soft, “Thank you.”

“You call this a mess? My room is tons worse,” Bertha said loudly and threw herself down on the couch.

“I guess _I’m_ more of a mess than the house,” Lydia admitted.

“You did seem a little off, just disappearing from the Halloween party like you did,” Prudence said, joining Bertha

“Yeah, something in the candy,” Lydia said lightly, sitting with them.

“After that I just had this creeping feeling like we had hung you out to dry,” Bertha said. “It crazy, but I had this niggling feeling that I was supposed to apologize for something, but I didn’t know what. Then you never came back to school for a couple days and talking things over with Prudence we had to come see if you were okay.”

“I’d had the same feeling, weird isn’t it?” Prudence looked up.

Lydia blinked. Had Betelgeuse somehow left behind the thought that they had done something wrong? They hadn’t, Lydia deserved every cold shoulder she got and more. Yet, in a weird way he had been looking out for her, even in the midst of petty teen problems. She hadn’t thanked him. Not for getting her out of the lost souls room, or helping her over halloween or even for just trying. Then a gasp of misery escaped her and she curled into a ball. These were different tears than those of fear and panic she’d shed in that miserable void. Barbara and Adam would have thanked Betelgeuse, even if he was a disgusting misogynistic psychopath. He had been far more cooperative, helpful even, than Lydia had ever thought possible. It hadn’t even worked, she’d gone to the Neitherworld, been tossed into the lost souls room, and all she had done was traumatize herself. It felt like she’d failed them all over again.

As Lydia sobbed a bony hand came to rest on her one shoulder, and a small hand on the other. Neither Prudence nor Bertha could think of anything to say. 

Lydia heard the words she needed to hear anyway, cycling through her head in the gravely but strangely sympathetic voice of Betelgeuse.  _ It’s okay to be freaked out. It’ll pass though. I’ve been through it too, the isolation. Things go back to normal, faster than you’d think, sometimes faster than you’re ready for. You’ll get through this. _

The ghost lingered nearby, with absolutely no idea how Lydia was thinking. Betelgeuse just let out a sigh. He figured Bertha and Prudence were a better safety net than he was.

**[Chapter Five: End]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I can't believe I held onto this as long as I did after it was already done. I intended to post it shortly before Christmas, but my holidays got a little hectic and it ended up not getting pushed back to after New Years. I can't keep a schedule for the life of me. Anyway, I feel like Lydia's come full circle through her emotional distraught now, meanwhile Betelgeuse is still just starting to comprehend his own emotional garbage. 
> 
> The next part still doesn't have a name set in stone, at the moment I think it will be "Learning Curve" but if it changes I will adjust this note accordingly. I make no promises regarding how soon any of that part will be ready.


End file.
